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SCLC Giants to Receive the Gandhi-King-Ikeda Community Builders Prize During Unique Easter Service at Morehouse

Reverend Joseph Lowery to deliver Easter Sermon

ATLANTA, April 21, 2011 ¾ The Reverend Doctor Joseph E. Lowery will deliver the sermon during Morehouse College’s first-ever Interfaith Resurrection Assembly service on Easter Sunday. The service, which will be held in the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel on Sunday, April 24, 2011, at 11 a.m., will feature a large interfaith choir, Taiko drums and dancers. It is a unique service for an Easter celebration. The goal of the interfaith service is to help attendees expand their definition of the word resurrection beyond Christianity and understand its application to all faith traditions.

During the celebration, both Reverend and Mrs. Evelyn Lowery will receive the Gandhi-King-Ikeda Community Builders Prize. The two have spent decades fighting for equality and social justice around the world.

“We honor Dr. Joseph and Mrs. Evelyn Lowery for their courageous nonviolent leadership in global civil and human rights,” said Dr. Lawrence Carter, dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel. “The Lowerys’ extraordinary commitment and contributions to community empowerment and positive social transformation exemplify the peace-builders whose legacies inspired establishment of the Gandhi-King-Ikeda Community Builder’s Prize.”

What better way to push the envelope on the understanding of resurrection than with a service led by one of the foot soldiers in the fight for social justice and peace building?

“The sacrifices and dedication of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, for whom the Community Builder’s Prize is named, illuminate a path for peaceful co-existence for all cultures and all time,” said Dr. Robert M. Franklin, president of Morehouse.

Others who have received the coveted Gandhi-King-Ikeda Community Builder’s Prize include: Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; Dr. Michael Nobel, chairman, Nobel Family Society; F.W. De Klerk, former president of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; Coretta Scott King, civil rights activist; and Yitzhak Rabin, former Prime Minister of Israel.

About the Gandhi-King-Ikeda Community Builders Prize
The Gandhi-King-Ikeda Community Builders Prize was designed to promote the importance of peace and positive social transformation by honoring those demonstrating extraordinary global leadership through nonviolence to reconcile differences.

Although Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu from India, Martin Luther King Jr. an African American Christian and Daisaku Ikeda is a Japanese Buddhist, the overwhelming consistency in the global reach of their philosophies and influence serve as an inspiration to all the world’s citizens. In the words of Daisaku Ikeda, "What our world most requires now is the kind of education that fosters love for humankind; develops character and provides an intellectual basis for the realization of peace and empowers learners to contribute to and improve society."